The Spirit of Hispanism

Diana Arbaiza

Description

In the late nineteenth century, Spanish intellectuals and entrepreneurs became captivated with Hispanism, a movement of transatlantic rapprochement between Spain and Latin America. Not only was this movement envisioned as a form of cultural empire to symbolically compensate for Spain’s colonial decline but it was also imagined as an opportunity to materially regain the Latin American markets. Paradoxically, a central trope of Hispanist discourse was the antimaterialistic character of Hispanic culture, allegedly the legacy of the moral superiority of Spanish colonialism in comparison with the commercial drive of modern colonial projects. This study examines how Spanish authors, economists, and entrepreneurs of various ideological backgrounds strove to reconcile the construction of Hispanic cultural identity with discourses of political economy and commercial interests surrounding the movement. Drawing from an interdisciplinary archive of literary essays, economic treatises, and political discourses, The Spirit of Hispanism revisits Peninsular Hispanism to underscore how the interlacing of cultural and commercial interests fundamentally shaped the Hispanist movement.

The Spirit of Hispanism will appeal to scholars in Hispanic literary and cultural studies as well as historians and anthropologists who specialize in the history of Spain and Latin America.

Sujets

• Hispanic American Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• América
• South
• Hispanic
• Americas
• Spain
• Latin America
• Anthropology
• Central
• Spain (groupe)
• American
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268106959
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SPIRIT OF HISPANISM
the SPIRIT of HISPANISM
Commerce, Culture, and Identity across the Atlantic, 1875–1936
DIANA ARBAIZA
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
Copyright © 2020 University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Arbaiza, Diana, 1980- author.
Title: The spirit of Hispanism : commerce, culture, and identity across the Atlantic, 1875–1936 / Diana Arbaiza.
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019054581 (print) | LCCN 2019054582 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268106935 (hardback) | ISBN 9780268106966 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9780268106959 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Pan-Hispanism—History. | Latin America—Relations—Spain. Spain—Relations—Latin America.
Classification: LCC F1416.S7 A725 2020 (print) | LCC F1416.S7 (ebook) | DDC 327.8046—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054581
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054582
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail].
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
ONE . Hispanism as Vindication: Spain as Other in the Age of Commerce
TWO . The Emergence of Hispanic Idealism, 1892–1900
THREE . Complicated Harmonies: Economic and Cultural Initiatives in Progressive Hispanism
FOUR . Ramiro de Maeztu and the Search for a Hispanic Economic Ideology
FIVE . Commercial Hispanism: Marketing Spiritual Capital
Afterword
Notes
Works Cited
Index
IILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1. Allegorical Float at the Centennial of 1892
Figure 2. Scenes from the Parade of Commerce and Industries in Madrid at the Centennial of 1892
Figure 3. Cartoon Parodying the Centennial Celebrations in Madrid
Figure 4. Cartoon of Columbus in an Advertisement
Figure 5. Allegorical Representations of Spain and Spanish America in El Centenario
Figure 6. Caricature of the United States in La Campana de Gracia
Figure 7. Design for a Proposed Monument to the “Discovery” for the Chicago Exhibition of 1893
Figure 8. Illustration for an Article on Rodó, Author of Ariel
Figure 9. Illustration of the Metaphor of Sisterhood “from Nation to Nation”
Figure 10. Cover designs for Mercurio
Figure 11. Front Cover of How Spain Is Loved (1920)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to start by thanking my editor, Eli Bortz, for believing in this project, and the team at Notre Dame for making it possible. Throughout the long process of creating this book, many people have influenced my ideas, but I would like to give special credit to those who had the most direct impact. I am the only one responsible for any errors in this work, but the following people inspired the best aspects of this project.
Even though this book departed enormously from my doctoral dissertation, the intellectual foundation behind it is undoubtedly shaped by my professors at the University of Illinois: Elena Delgado, Joyce Tolliver, and Mariselle Meléndez. Special thanks to Michael Palencia-Roth, who inspired me to research cross-cultural exchanges, and to my advisor, Ericka Beckman, who guided me into new theoretical fields and venues of inquiry. I feel very grateful for her ongoing mentorship and for her valuable feedback on this project.
This book would not have been possible without the support of my colleagues in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at North Carolina State University. I thank Ruth Gross for her endeavors to facilitate my research and for the time and means made available for my archival work in Spain. Even more important was the stimulating and encouraging environment at NC State. I benefited enormously from the exchange with all my colleagues, but I would like to particularly mention Agustín Pastén and Patricia Morgado, as well as Shelley Garrigan, who read several chapters of the book and gave me the sharpest and most constructive criticism. I am profoundly indebted to Elvira Vilches and Jordi Marí for their brilliant scholarly inspiration and their generosity as friends. Our conversations on literature, economy, and national identity were fundamental to this book and their belief in the project one of my strongest motivations.
I was finalizing the manuscript when I decided to move back to Europe. I would like to thank my colleagues at the University of Antwerp for providing support and determination during the final stages, especially Rita De Maeseneer, who read and commented on the introduction. In the United States, I owe thanks to Ronald Briggs, and to Lisa Burner for her gracious and insightful suggestions about portions of the book.
During this process I have been fortunate to find a great source of comfort in my friends and families: my aunts and uncles in Spain and my family in Vermont have been incredibly supportive and demonstrated a stoic endurance to listen to my ramblings about Hispanism. The good cheer of my friends in Bilbao sustained me and provided needed distraction. I especially want to thank my parents, Victor Arbaiza and Lucía Tena, who patiently encouraged me in every step of this process and helped my partner and I to take care of our son while I did archival research.
My greatest debt and gratitude go to my husband, Sasha Newell, who was my strongest support intellectually, emotionally, and pragmatically. He read and discussed this book multiple times, and while his luminous thinking always drove me to improve my claims, his company soothed the pains of writing. He entertained our son in intricate board games so that I could work on this book, and he also knew when to remind me of the importance of play.
Finally, my son, Ibai, has been my true inspiration, the person who most motivated me and the one who gave me perspective. Este libro va dedicado a mis dos chicos.
Introduction
In June 2017, Borja Cardelús, a writer and documentary filmmaker, announced in the newspaper ABC the imminent establishment of the Hispanic Civilization Foundation. Cardelús, who also had a brief career as member of José María Aznar’s government, explained in the article that the goal of the organization was to improve the national and international image of Spain. To do so, he declared, the foundation would emulate the “rich western nations” that had long cultivated their image through cultural media. Spain, Cardelús proposed, did not know how to “sell” itself, paralyzed by the Leyenda Negra—Black Legend—that attributed to Spain all kind of vices while concealing its achievements. Among these accomplishments he highlighted the ability to create a civilization:
en el mundo occidental solo hay dos, la anglosajona y la hispánica, y esta atesora grandes valores. No solo se compone de una lengua, una religión y una raza mestiza, sino de muchas otras cosas: música, literatura, arquitectura, unidad de costumbres, pasión vital, generosidad, solidaridad, comunicación. . . . Se trata de una cultura riquísima en valores, intermedia entre dos feroces extremos: el totalitarismo marxista y el capitalismo egoísta y excluyente. La Civilización Hispánica matiza ambos excesos, porque se halla impregnada de valores humanísticos cristianos. (2017)
[In the western world there are only two, the Anglo-Saxon and the Hispanic, and the latter accumulates great values. It is composed not only of a language, a religion, and a mixed race, but also by many other things: music, literature, architecture, unity in traditions, vital passion, generosity, solidarity, communication. It is an extremely wealthy culture in values and intermediate between two ferocious extremes: Marxist totalitarianism and the selfish and exclusive capitalism. The Hispanic civilization nuances both these excesses because it is imbued with Christian humanistic values.] 1
Co-promoted by Cardelús and the entrepreneur José Antonio Pérez-Nievas, the organization was officially established in January 2018 with a note of presentation to the press that followed the arguments of the mentioned article. The alarms soon rang. The director of the Instituto Cervantes, Juan Manuel Bonet, defended his institution against the foundation’s accusations of incompetence while the historian José Álvarez Junco warned about the resurgence of a Spanish nationalism “sin complejos” as a response to the Catalonian independence movement (Hermoso 2018).
Most of the foundation’s website remains under construction, leading one to wonder whether it will truly attain the ambitious project of developing a series of multimedia content to promote “Hispanic civilization.” Yet, regardless of the success of the foundation’s future efforts, its establishment is itself quite symptomatic of a surge of Spanish conservative nationalism. In 2013, Santiago Abascal, leader of the ultra-right party Vox and former president of the Fundación Denaes (Fundación Para la Defensa de la Nación Española), extolled the virtues of Spain’s civilizing work (2013), a discourse closely followed by the leader of the Partido Popular, Pablo Casado, during a recent electoral campaign (“Pablo Casado: La Hispanidad” 2018). Nua